The  Other  Room 


4P^RY| 

«...  ,  or 

*  -,  -A 

««.  nn        I 


.-.GO 


LIBRARY 

UMtVtRSITY  OF 
r  -.!  I.  CKNIA 

'M^GO       y 


The  Other  Room 


The  Other  Room 


Lyman  Abbott 


New  York 

The  Outlook  Company 
1903 


Copyright,  1903,  by 
The  Outlook  Company 

Published,  March,  1903 
Reprinted,  May,  1903 


THE  DEVINNE  PRESS 


A  French  deist  was  once  ar- 
guing against  the  immortality 
of  the  soul.  His  Christian 
friend  heard  him  through  in 
silence,  then  replied :  "Prob- 
ably you  are  right ;  probably 
you  are  not  immortal,  but  I 
AM." 


Contents 

PAGE 

The  Other  Room 9 

In  Darkness 25 

The  Light-Bringer 41 

The    First-Fruits    of   Them    that 

slept 55 

God  Shall  Give  It  a  Body  ...     69 

How  Shall  We  Think  of  the  Dead?  79 
The  Practice  of  Immortality  .  .  97 
Picture-Teaching 109 


THE    OTHER    ROOM 


THE   OTHER   ROOM 

THE  city  is  full  of  strangers. 
Every  house  has  guests.  Tents 
are  set  up  on  the  surrounding  hills. 
Pilgrims  have  come  from  far  to 
join  in  the  annual  celebration  of 
the  national  birthday.  The  gen- 
eral atmosphere  is  one  of  festivity, 
but  not  of  hilarity.  With  the 
sacred  memories  of  the  past  mingle 
sorrowful  appreciation  of  the  na- 
tional humiliation  in  the  present; 

but  the  national  celebration  is  also 
ii 


THE   OTHER   ROOM 

an  occasion  for  family  reunions,  and 
these  give  to  the  Paschal  Feast  a 
domestic  flavor  like  that  of  our 
own  Thanksgiving  Day. 

Into  an  upper  chamber  the  Mas- 
ter has  come  with  his  disciples  to 
share  in  this  national  celebration 
and  to  give  to  the  feast  a  new  sig- 
nificance. The  solemnities  of  even 
that  hour  have  not  been  sufficient 
to  expel  petty  ambitions  from  the 
hearts  of  the  disciples,  and  they 
have  quarreled  with  one  another 
as  to  who  should  take  precedence 
in  the  seats  at  the  table.  The 
Master  has  waited  until  the  un- 
seemly wrangle  is  over  and  they 
have  settled  the  insignificant  ques- 

12 


THE   OTHER   ROOM 

tion  for  themselves.  Then  he  has 
taken  the  ewer  and  the  basin,  and 
in  washing  their  feet  has  performed 
for  them  the  service  which  it  did 
not  occur  to  any  one  to  offer  to 
his  brother  disciple  or  even  to  the 
Master  himself. 

Subdued  if  not  saddened  by  the 
rebuke,  they  have  listened  appalled 
to  his  declaration  that  one  of  them 
should  betray  him,  another  should 
deny  him,  the  rest  should  forsake 
him  in  his  last  hours.  At  last  they 
begin  to  believe  what  he  had  often 
told  them,  that  the  machinations  of 
his  enemies  would  prove  apparently 
successful,  that  he  would  be  arrested, 
convicted,  sentenced  to  a  shameful 


THE   OTHER  ROOM 

death,  and  the  sentence  would  be 
executed.  Then,  as  the  coming 
events  cast  their  dark  shadows  be- 
fore, he  utters  those  ever-memora- 
ble but  often  misunderstood  words: 
"Let  not  your  heart  be  troubled; 
ye  have  faith  in  God,  have  faith 
also  in  me.  In  my  Father's  house 
are  many  dwelling-places ;  if  it 
were  not  so,  would  I  have  told  you 
that  I  am  going  to  prepare  a  room 
for  you? " 

The  universe  is  God's  house. 
This  world  is  not  the  only  habitat 
for  the  living.  In  his  house  are 
many  rooms.  Death  is  only  push- 
ing aside  the  portiere  and  passing 
from  one  room  to  another. 


THE    OTHER   ROOM 

In  this  figure  is  found  the  key 
to  Christ's  instructions,  and  so  to 
the  Christian  faith  respecting  death 
and  immortality. 

It  is  not  well  to  spend  much 
time  in  endeavoring  to  pierce  the 
impenetrable  curtain  and  see  what 
lies  on  the  other  side.  It  is  best 
for  us  to  put  the  main  strength  of 
our  thought,  the  main  stress  of  our 
purpose,  on  the  duties  which  we 
have  to  perform,  the  service  we 
have  to  render,  the  Father's  will 
which  we  are  appointed  to  fulfil  in 
the  room  in  which  we  are  now 
living.  Yet  since  death  is  continu- 
ally drawing  from  our  side  our 
companions  into  the  other  room,  it 
15 


THE   OTHER   ROOM 

is  well  occasionally  to  reflect  upon  it, 
that  we  may  at  least  endeavor  to 
banish  the  evil  thoughts  that  tor- 
ment us,  and  teach  our  hearts  also 
not  to  be  troubled  nor  afraid. 

No  philosophy  is  adequate  to 
solve  the  mystery  of  life ;  none  is 
large  enough  to  include  all  its  con- 
tradicting phenomena.  He  who 
teaches  us  to  speak  to  our  Father 
who  is  in  heaven  as  though  he 
were  at  our  side,  also  compares 
him  to  a  householder  who  has 
gone  into  a  far  country  and  left 
his  estate  in  the  charge  of  his  ser- 
vants. Both  teachings  find  their 
confirmation  in  Christian  experi- 
ence. Sometimes  God  seems  to  be 
16 


THE   OTHER   ROOM 

an  absentee  God  whom  we  cannot 
reach.  Sometimes  he  seems  "closer 
than  breathing  "  and  "  nearer  than 
hands  and  feet."  He  comes  and 
goes  through  the  open  door,  now 
seen,  now  unseen,  but  never  distant. 
My  father  was  the  head  of  a  school 
in  Boston  years  ago.  After  the 
opening  exercises  he  would  often 
go  out  of  the  school-room,  leaving 
the  hundred  girls  without  teacher 
or  monitor,  absolutely  free,  abso- 
lutely unwatched,  with  neither 
promise  of  reward  nor  fear  of  pen- 
alty to  preserve  order,  for  he  would 
test  the  girls  and  see  what  kind  they 
were,  that  he  might  make  true  girls 
out  of  them.  So  sometimes  God 


THE   OTHER   ROOM 

seems  to  leave  us  a  little  while 
without  the  vision  of  his  presence, 
with  neither  penalty  nor  reward 
apparent  before  us,  that  he  may 
both  test  and  see  what  manner  of 
children  we  are,  and  that  he  may 
make  out  of  us  children  of  God 
who  follow  righteousness  and  es- 
chew evil  not  because  we  are 
watched,  not  in  hope  of  reward  or 
fear  of  penalty,  but  because  we  are 
learning  to  love  righteousness  and 
hate  evil.  At  these  times  he  has 
but  gone  into  the  other  room,  un- 
seen but  not  far  distant.  At  other 
times  he  is  in  the  midst  of  us.  He 
who  says,  "Lo,  I  am  with  you 

alway,  even  unto  the   end   of  the 
18 


THE   OTHER   ROOM 

world,"  also  says,  "  It  is  expedient 
for  you  that  I  go  away."  Some- 
times we  talk  with  him,  and  our 
hearts  burn  within  us  while  the 
strange  converse  goes  on.  He  ap- 
pears to  us  as  we  sit  at  the  table 
with  him,  and  he  blesses  and  breaks 
and  gives  the  bread  of  communion 
to  us ;  then  vanishes.  This  appear- 
ing and  disappearing  Christ,  this 
strange  entrance  which  he  makes 
into  our  life  at  unexpected  times 
and  places,  should  suffice  to  teach  us 
that  the  other  room  is  not  far 
away,  that,  seen  or  unseen,  he  is 
always  close  at  hand. 

Where  he  is  are  those  who  are 
banished    from    our  sight,  but   not 
19 


THE    OTHER   ROOM 

from  our  presence.  "  To  depart, 
and  to  be  with  Christ,  which  is  far 
better,"  is  Paul's  definition  of  dying; 
but  if  Christ  is  with  his  Church, 
and  Paul  is  with  Christ,  Paul  is 
with  the  Church.  If  your  mother, 
your  child,  your  friend  is  with 
Christ,  and  Christ  is  with  you, 
your  mother,  your  child,  your  friend 
is  with  you.  "  This  day,"  says 
Christ  upon  the  cross  to  the  peni- 
tent thief,  "  thou  shalt  be  with  me 
in  Paradise."  Yet  Christ,  rising 
from  the  dead,  appeared  to  his 
disciples  upon  the  earth.  If  he 
was  with  his  disciples,  and  the 
penitent  thief  was  with  him,  then 
neither  he  nor  the  penitent  thief 


20 


THE   OTHER   ROOM 

was  in  "a  happy  land  far,  far 
away."  Paradise  is  not  a  distant 
country ;  it  is  only  the  other 
room. 

All  popular  errors  have  in  them 
some  measure  of  truth.  It  is  the 
truth,  not  the  error,  that  makes 
them  popular.  I  am  not  a  Spirit- 
ualist. There  are  many  reasons 
why  I  am  not.  The  spiritualistic 
mediums  have  been  too  often  proved 
arrant  impostors ;  against  fraudulent 
pretense  by  the  spirits  themselves, 
if  spirits  there  are,  there  is  no  pro- 
tection ;  the  method  of  their  com- 
municating and  the  subject-matter 
of  their  communications  are  alike 

repellent  to  common  sense  and  to 
21 


THE   OTHER   ROOM 

refined  feeling  ;  "  by  their  fruits  ye 
shall  know  them,"  and  Spiritualism 
has  no  fruit  of  public  service  and 
little  of  enduring  comfort  to  show : 
for  these  reasons  I  am  not  a  Spir- 
itualist. But  Spiritualism  would 
never  have  had  the  power  which  it 
once  possessed  and  is  now  losing 
had  it  not  borne  witness  to  the 
truth  which  the  Church  of  Christ 
has  often  ignored,  and  sometimes 
denied,  that  death  is  not  cessation 
of  life  but  only  transition,  and  that 
the  dead  are  not  dead  but  living, 
are  not  even  departed,  but  living 
near  at  hand,  having  only  stepped 
across  the  threshold  into  the  other 
room. 

22 


THE   OTHER   ROOM 

The  dream  of  poets  that  our 
unseen  friends  are  friends  still,  and 
minister  to  us  in  services  which  we 
but  dimly  recognize,  in  counsels 
which  strangely  guide  us,  though 
we  know  not  whence  they  come,  is 
more  than  a  dream.  Poets  also 
see.  Their  witness  to  the  invisible 
realities  is  not  to  be  discarded. 
Their  prophesying  we  are  not  to 
despise ;  and  with  rare  exceptions 
they  have  always  believed  and 
taught  us  to  believe: 

Far  off  thou  art,  but  ever  nigh  ; 

I  have  thee  still,  and  I  rejoice ; 

I  prosper,  circled  with  thy  voice ; 
I  shall  not  lose  thee  tho'  I  die. 


IN    DARKNESS 


IN   DARKNESS 

BEFORE  Christ  brought  life 
and  immortality  to  light, death 
was  the  slayer  of  man's  hopes.  It 
left  love  alive,  but  love  without 
hope  is  poignant  sorrow.  It  is  said 
that  in  the  ancient  Greek  ceme- 
teries no  inscription  of  hope  is  ever 
to  be  found.  The  inscriptions  are 
all  sacred  to  the  memory  of  the  past; 
none  of  them  is  radiant  with  an- 
ticipations of  the  future.  It  is  true 
that  even  to  the  heathen  death  did 
27 


IN  DARKNESS 

not  end  all.  They  believed  in  some- 
thing after  death,  but  they  knew 
not  what  —  a  vague,  shadowy,  un- 
satisfactory immortality.  Homer 
makes  the  dead  Achilles  say : 

I  would  be 

A  laborer  on  earth  and  serve  for  hire 
Some  man  of  mean  estate,  who  makes 

scant  cheer, 
Rather  than  reign  over  all  who  have 

gone  down 
To  death. 

For  the  Hades  of  the  heathen  was 
a  shadowy  abode  in  which  there 
was  neither  voice,  nor  sight,  nor 
life  —  only  the  mere  shadow  of  a 
life,  and  the  mere  echo  of  a  voice, 
and  the  dim  pretense  of  a  vision. 
28 


IN  DARKNESS 

The  foundation  of  this  pagan  con- 
ception of  death  is  the  pagan  con- 
ception of  life,  which  identifies  the 
spirit  with  the  body,  the  organist 
with  the  organ  on  which  he  plays, 
and  through  which  he  expresses 
himself.  When  the  body  decayed, 
the  spirit  seemed  to  them  either  to 
have  ceased  to  exist  or  to  have  lost 
all  its  power  of  life,  to  be  either  non- 
existent or  but  the  shadow  of  a 
reality.  So  they  made  pathetic  en- 
deavors to  preserve  the  body  from 
decay ;  embalmed  it  and  sealed  it 
up  in  great  stone  sarcophagi, 
strangely  imagining  that  by  arrest- 
ing the  progress  of  decay  they  could 
preserve  the  subtle  spirit  of  life. 
29 


IN  DARKNESS 

Or  sometimes,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
North  American  Indians,  they  bur- 
ied the  implements  of  warfare  with 
the  warrior,  or  the  horse  with  the 
horseman,  comforting  themselves 
with  a  childish  imagination,  which 
was  less  than  a  belief,  that  so  they 
would  facilitate  the  disembodied 
spirit  in  continuing  in  another 
world  the  pursuits  which  had  occu- 
pied him  here. 

The  conception  of  Hades  current 
among  the  Hebrews  hardly  tran- 
scended that  of  other  ancient  peo- 
ples. Neither  in  Moses  nor  in  the 
prophets  is  there  found  any  clear 
conception  of  life  after  death.  The 
writers  of  the  Old  Testament  Scrip- 
30 


IN  DARKNESS 

tures  either  identify  the  spirit  with 
the  body  and  so  consider  that  the 
death  of  the  body  ends  all,  or  con- 
ceive of  the  spirits  of  the  departed 
as  dwelling  in  a  prison-house,  a  dark 
and  gloomy  under-world.  Thus 
Job,  protesting  against  the  injustice 
of  life,  laments  the  untimely  death 
of  man  : 

For  there  is  hope  of  a  tree,  if  it  be  cut 

down,  that  it  will  sprout  again, 
And  that  the  tender  branch  thereof  will 

not  cease. 
Though  the  root  thereof  wax  old  in  the 

earth, 
And  the  stock  thereof  die  in  the 

ground ; 
Yet  through  the  scent  of  water  it  will 

bud, 


IN  DARKNESS 

And  put  forth  boughs  like  a  plant. 
But  man  dieth,  and  wasteth  away  : 
Yea,  man  giveth  up  the  ghost,  and 

where  is  he  ? 

As  the  waters  fail  from  the  sea, 
And  the  river  decayeth  and  drieth 

up; 

So  man  lieth  down  and  riseth  not : 
Till  the  heavens  be  no  more,  they  shall 

not  awake, 
Nor  be  roused  out  of  their  sleep. 

Thus  the  Psalmist  characterizes 
Sheol  as  the  land  of  forgetfulness : 

Wilt  thou  show  wonders  to  the  dead  ? 
Shall  they  that  are  deceased  arise  and 

praise  thee  ? 
Shall  thy  loving-kindness  be  declared 

in  the  grave  ? 

Or  thy  faithfulness  in  Destruction  ? 
32 


IN  DARKNESS 

Shall  thy  wonders  be  known  in  the  dark? 
And  thy  righteousness  in  the  land  of 
forgetfulness  ? 

Thus  to  Hezekiah  death  is  the 
end  of  communion  with  God  and 
of  hope  for  humanity  : 

I  said,  I  shall  not  see  the  Lord,  even  the 

Lord  in  the  land  of  the  living : 
I  shall  behold  man  no  more  with  the 

inhabitants  of  the  world. 
Mine  age  is  removed,  and  is  carried 

away  from  me  as  a  shepherd's  tent : 
I  have  rolled  up  like  a  weaver  my  life ; 

he  will  cut  me  off  from  the  loom  : 
From  day  even  to  night  wilt  thou  make 

an  end  of  me.  .  .  . 
For  the  grave  cannot  praise  thee,  death 

cannot  celebrate  thee : 
They  that  go  down  into  the  pit  cannot 

hope  for  thy  truth. 

33 


IN  DARKNESS 

Even  Isaiah,  the  most  spiritual 
of  the  prophets,  conceives  of  the 
place  of  the  dead  as  a  dwelling- 
place  of  shadows  from  whom  the 
strength  of  life  is  departed.  His 
picture  of  the  welcome  of  the  King 
of  Babylon  to  the  land  of  death 
graphically  illustrates  the  Hebraic 
conception  prior  to  the  coming  of 
Christ :  * 

How  still  is  the  despot  become,  how 

still  is  the  raging  ! 
Jehovah  has  broken  the  staff  of  the 

wicked,  the  rod  of  the  tyrants, 
Which  smote  peoples  in  passion  with 

stroke  unremitting, 
Which  trampled  the  nations  in  anger, 

unchecked  was  his  trampling ! 

1  Translation  of  Dr.  T.  K.  Cheyne,  slightly  altered. 

34 


IN  DARKNESS 

Still  and  at  rest,  the  whole  earth,  into 
shoutings  of  triumph  break  they  ; 

At  thy  fate  the  pine-trees  rejoice  and 
Lebanon's  cedars,  saying  : 

No  woodman  comes  up  against  us  since 
thou  art  laid  low. 

Sheol  beneath  is  startled  because  of 

thee,  expecting  soon  thine  arrival; 
For  thee  the  shades  it  arouses,  all  the 

bell-wethers  of  mankind ; 
It  makes  arise  from  their  thrones  all  the 

kings  of  the  nations. 
They  all  address  thee  .  .  .,  and  say  to 

thee: 
Thou,  too,  art  made  strengthless  as  we 

are  —  to  us  hast  thou  been  leveled  ! 
Brought  down  to  Sheol  is  thy  pride  and 

the  twang  of  thy  harps  ; 
Beneath  thee  corruption  is  spread,  with 

worms  art  thou  covered. 
35 


IN  DARKNESS 

How  art  thou  fallen  from  heaven,  O 

radiant  one,  Son  of  the  Dawn  ! 
How  art  thou  struck  down  to  the 

ground,  to  lie  a  stiff  corpse  upon 

corpses ! 
And  thou,  thou  didst  say  in  thy  heart : 

The  heavens  will  I  scale, 
Above  the  stars  of  God  will  I  exalt  my 

throne, 
I  will  sit  on  the  Mount  of  Assembly  in 

the  recesses  of  the  North, 
I  will  mount  above  even  the  hills  of  the 

clouds,  I  will  match  the  Most  High. 
Nathless  thou  art  brought  down  to 

Sheol,to  the  very  recesses  of  the  pit. 

They  who  see  thee,  on  thee  do  they 
gaze  and  thee  they  consider,  saying: 

Is  this  he  who  startled  the  earth,  who 
shook  kingdoms, 

36 


IN  DARKNESS 

Who  made  the  world  a  desert,  and  broke 

down  its  cities, 
Who  sent  not  his  prisoners  back  free, 

each  one  to  his  house  ? 
Kings  of  nations,  all  of  them,  repose  in 

high  estate, 
But  thou  among  the  slain  art  flung 

down,  among  those  who  are  pierced 

with  the  sword, 
Who  go  down  to  the  very  base  of  the 

pit, as  a  carcass  trodden  underfoot. 

It  is  said  that  every  type  of  hu- 
man development  can  be  found  in 
the  present  century  —  the  stone  age, 
the  iron  age,  the  bronze  age ;  the 
cliff-dwellers,  the  lake-dwellers ; 
slavery,  serfdom,  feudalism,  the 
wage  system ;  fetishism,  polytheism, 
37 


IN  DARKNESS 

idolatry,  spiritual  worship.  It  is 
certain  that  the  old  pagan  darkness 
hangs  like  a  pall  over  the  Christian 
burial-places;  it  is  symbolized  by 
the  black  crape  which  we  hang 
upon  our  doors;  it  is  expressed  in 
the  gloomy  utterances  of  many  a 
funeral  discourse ;  it  is  embodied  in 
some  of  our  most  beautiful  hymns. 
Phoenicians  or  Egyptians  might  have 
sung: 

Through  sorrow's  night  and  danger's 
path, 

Amid  the  deepening  gloom, 
We  soldiers  of  an  injured  King 

Are  marching  to  the  tomb. 

But  no  followers  of  Christ  who  be- 
lieve in  his  resurrection,  who  be- 
38 


IN  DARKNESS 

lieve  in  him  who  brought  life  and 
immortality  to  light,  ought  ever  to 
sing  so  pagan  a  stanza.  Neverthe- 
less, they  do.  Paganism  still  iden- 
tifies the  person  with  the  body 
which  he  occupied,  still  seals  the 
body  up  in  a  coffin  or  casket,  still 
follows  it  to  the  burial-place,  still 
thinks  of  the  loved  one  as  lying  in 
the  grave,  still  goes  there  to  sit  and 
grieve,  tortured  by  the  strange  im- 
agination that  he  is  where  his  mol- 
dering  tenement  is  mingling  with 
the  dust,  still  marches  with  Henry 
Kirke  White  only  "to  the  tomb" 
and  looks  not  beyond,  still  seeks 
the  living  among  the  dead,  still  asks 
for  comfort  only  from  sorrowful 
39 


IN  DARKNESS 

memories,  not  from  radiant  hopes, 
or  still  imagines  the  friend  as 
wrapped  in  a  long  and  dreary  sleep, 
awaiting  resurrection  on  some  far- 
distant  ascension  day.  This  pagan- 
ism is  not  less  pagan  because  it  uses 
conventional  Christian  forms  in  its 
mourning,  sings  Christian  hymns 
for  its  dirges,  and  puts  a  Christian 
cross  upon  the  unchristian  tomb- 
stone. 


40 


THE    LIGHT-BRINGER 


THE   LIGHT-BRINGER 

IF  Christ  was  not  the  first  one  in 
human  history  to  teach  the  ab- 
solute continuity  of  life,  he  was  the 
first  one  who  ever  succeeded  in  in- 
ducing the  world  to  listen  to  the 
message.  It  is  never  safe  to  utter 
a  sweeping  negative,  but  I  doubt 
whether  the  teaching  of  the  con- 
tinuity of  life  can  be  found  either 
in  pagan  or  in  Jewish  literature  prior 
to  the  time  of  Christ.  This  was 
the  essential  character  of  his  mes- 
43 


THE  LIGHT-BRINGER 

sage,  underlying  alike  his  utter- 
ances, his  quiet  assumptions,  and 
his  silences. 

Life  is  continuous ;  there  is  not 
a  break;  there  is  not  a  sleep  and  a 
future  awakening;  there  is  not  a 
shadow-land  from  which,  by  and 
by,  the  spirits  will  be  summoned 
to  be  reunited  to  the  embalmed 
corpses ;  life  goes  on  without  a  sin- 
gle break :  such  was  the  essence  of 
Christ's  message.  Like  all  other 
philosophical  statements,  this  sum- 
mary must  be  gathered  from  his 
teaching  rather  than  looked  for  in 
explicit  and  definite  statement;  but 
it  is  not  ambiguous  on  that  account. 
It  is  expressed  by  his  promises.  I 
44 


THE  LIGHT-BRINGER 

give  unto  you,  he  said,  eternal  life. 
He  gives  it  here  and  now;  it  is  a 
present  possession.  Eternal  life  the 
Pharisees  thought  was  to  come  in 
some  final,  far-off  resurrection. 
Christ  said,  You  have  eternal  life  if 
you  believe  in  the  Son  of  God.  It 
is  indicated  in  what  he  said  to 
Martha  when  he  came  to  the 
tomb  of  Lazarus.  He  said,  Thy 
brother  shall  rise  again.  She  said, 
I  know  that  he  shall  rise  again  in 
the  resurrection  at  the  last  day. 
Christ  said,  No,  you  are  mistaken; 
"whosoever  liveth  and  believeth 
in  me  shall  never  die."  For  him 
who  has  faith  in  the  Messiah  there 
is  no  death ;  "  I  am  the  resurrection 
45 


THE  LIGHT-BRINGER 

and  the  life."  The  believer  takes 
that  resurrection  and  lives  on  with 
an  unbroken  life.  The  thread  in 
the  weaver's  loom  is  not  cut;  it 
simply  disappears  from  human 
vision. 

The  same  truth  is  implicit  in  his 
last  words  to  his  disciples:  You 
think  I  am  going  to  disappear,  to 
be  as  though  I  were  not.  Not  at 
all.  I  go  back  to  my  Father,  and 
yet  in  going  back  to  my  Father  I 
do  not  go  away  from  you.  I  live, 
my  Father  liveth  with  me,  I  live 
with  him,  I  live  with  you,  I  will 
come  again  and  make  my  abode 
with  you.  My  life  does  not  break 
off,  does  not  carry  me  away  from 
46 


THE  LIGHT-BRINGER 

you;  I  continue  to  be  in  your  pres- 
ence and  companionship  more  than 
ever  before.  It  is  for  my  advan- 
tage that  I  should  go,  for  I  am 
going  to  my  Father;  it  is  for  your 
advantage  that  I  should  go,  because  I 
can  serve  you  better,  live  more 
with  you,  be  closer  to  you,  than 
I  ever  was  in  the  flesh. 

This  teaching  is  intimated  in 
the  three  resurrections  which 
Christ  wrought.  He  comes  to  the 
maiden  and  says,  She  is  not  dead; 
she  is  sleeping.  He  takes  her  by 
the  hand  and  says,  Arise !  He  puts 
back  the  living  soul  into  the  tene- 
ment. Yes,  the  tent  had  fallen 
down,  and  he  calls  the  tenant  back, 
47 


THE  LIGHT-BRINGER 

reerects  the  tent,  and  puts  her  in 
it.  He  meets  the  boy  borne  on 
the  open  bier.  The  two  strange 
processions  meet  —  the  one  a  ju- 
bilant throng  flocking  after  the 
Life-Giver,  the  other  a  mourning 
throng  flocking  after  the  bier — 
the  procession  of  life,  the  proces- 
sion of  death.  He  stops  them  both, 
and  takes  the  young  man  by  the 
hand  and  says,  I  say,  Arise!  and 
calls  back  the  spirit  and  puts  it  in 
the  frame  again,  and  gives  the  boy 
back  to  the  mother.  He  comes  to 
Lazarus.  The  message  is  the 
same :  There  is  no  death ;  he  is 
not  dead,  he  is  asleep.  And  then 
when  the  disciples  do  not  under- 
48 


THE  LIGHT-BRINGER 

stand,  he  says,  He  is  dead.  But  at 
his  bidding  they  roll  away  the 
stone,  and  he  calls  to  Lazarus,  as 
though  to  indicate  that  Lazarus 
was  not  beyond  the  reach  of  his 
voice,  and  the  spirit  comes  back 
and  fills  again  the  body  and  ani- 
mates it.  Lazarus  is  not  far  off, 
Lazarus  is  not  dead,  Lazarus  is 
living  and  close  at  hand. 

The  teaching  of  Christ  symbo- 
lized in  these  three  resurrections 
wrought  by  him  has  been  beautifully 
expressed  by  Rossiter  W.  Raymond 
in  a  poem  which  has  given  comfort 
to  many  hearts,  and  which  I  hope 
through  this  reprinting  here  may 
give  comfort  to  many  more: 
49 


THE  LIGHT-BRINGER 

CHRISTUS     CONSOLATOR 

Beside  the  dead  I  knelt  for  prayer, 
And  felt  a  presence  as  I  prayed. 

Lo!  it  was  Jesus  standing  there. 
He  smiled:  "Be  not  afraid!" 

"  Lord,  thou  hast  conquered  death,  we 
know; 

Restore  again  to  life,"  I  said, 
"  This  one  who  died  an  hour  ago." 

He  smiled  :  "  She  is  not  dead  !  " 

"  Asleep  then,  as  thyself  didst  say  ; 
Yet  thou  canst  lift  the  lids  that 

keep 

Her  prisoned  eyes  from  ours  away!" 
He  smiled:  "She  doth  not  sleep!" 

"  Nay  then,  tho'  haply  she  do  wake, 
And  look  upon  some  fairer  dawn, 

50 


THE  LIGHT-BRINGER 

Restore  her  to  our  hearts  that  ache!" 
He  smiled:  "She  is  not  gone!" 

"  Alas  !  too  well  we  know  our  loss, 

Nor  hope  again  our  joy  to  touch, 

Until  the  stream  of  death  we  cross." 

He  smiled:  "There  is  no  such!" 

"  Yet  our  beloved  seem  so  far, 

The  while  we  yearn  to  feel  them 

near, 

Albeit  with  thee  we  trust  they  are." 
He  smiled:  "And  I  am  here!" 

"  Dear  Lord,  how  shall  we  know  that 

they 

Still  walk  unseen  with  us  and  thee, 
Nor  sleep,  nor  wander  far  away?" 
He  smiled:  "Abide  in  me." 

I  believe  in  this  teaching  of  Jesus 
Christ   because    I  believe  in  him. 
51 


THE  LIGHT-BRINGER 

He  was  not  a  philosopher  groping 
after  truth,  discovering  it  by  research 
and  leaving  us  to  follow  his  method 
to  the  same  result ;  he  was  a  faith- 
ful and  true  witness.  "We  speak 
that  we  do  know,  and  testify  that 
we  have  seen":  this  note  of  per- 
sonal assurance  runs  through  all  his 
teaching.  One  has  but  to  compare 
the  consolatory  words  with  which 
Socrates  closes  the  "  Phasdo,"  and 
the  words  with  which  Christ  con- 
soles his  disciples  in  the  last  inter- 
view before  his  crucifixion,  to  see 
the  difference  between  a  philoso- 
pher searching  for  the  truth  con- 
cerning an  unknown  world,  and 
the  Divine  Man  testifying  to  the 


THE  LIGHT-BRINGER 

truth  within  his  own  knowledge 
respecting  that  unknown  world. 
I  believe  that  he  knew  what  he 
was  talking  about,  that  he  was  not 
deceived  by  his  own  illusions,  that 
he  was  not  mistaking  his  hopes 
for  assurances,  that  he  was  not  an 
enthusiast  who  thought  that  the 
phantasmagoria  of  a  day-dream  was 
an  assured  reality,  that  when  he 
said,  "In  my  Father's  house  there 
are  many  dwelling-places/'  he 
uttered  neither  the  guess  of  a  sibyl, 
the  hope  of  a  prophet,  nor  the  con- 
clusion of  a  philosopher ;  he  ut- 
tered the  testimony  of  a  witness 
to  a  life  of  which  he  had  personal 
and  familiar  knowledge. 
53 


THE  FIRST-FRUITS  OF 
THEM  THAT  SLEPT 


THE    FIRST-FRUITS   OF 
THEM   THAT   SLEPT 

THE  resurrection  of  Jesus 
Christ  was  not  an  extraor- 
dinary event;  it  was  an  extraordinary 
evidence  of  an  ordinary  event. 
Every  death  is  a  resurrection. 
Death  is  the  separation  of  the  soul 
from  the  body.  The  organist  rises 
from  his  seat  and  leaves  the  instru- 
ment on  which  he  has  been  play- 
ing. The  instrument  crumbles 
into  dust,  the  organist  still  lives. 
57 


THE  FIRST-FRUITS  OF 

"Earth  to  earth,  ashes  to  ashes, 
dust  to  dust";  but  the  spirit  to  God 
who  gave  it.  Death  is  dust  to 
dust,  ashes  to  ashes;  the  resurrec- 
tion is  the  spirit  to  God  who  gave 
it:  the  two  are  simultaneous. 

Jesus  Christ  was  not  raised  from 
the  dead  by  a  power  acting  on  him 
from  without.  He  had  in  himself 
the  power  of  an  endless  life.  He 
was  himself  the  resurrection  and 
the  life,  and  therefore  immune  from 
death.  Death  had  no  dominion 
over  him.  He  laid  down  his  life 
and  he  took  it  again,  because  he 
had  power  to  lay  it  down  and  to 
take  it  again.  The  life  was  con- 
tinuous, unbroken.  What  was  re- 

58 


THEM   THAT  SLEPT 

markable  was  not  that  his  life  was 
thus  continuous  and  unbroken,  that 
when  his  body  went  to  the  grave 
his  spirit  returned  to  his  Father; 
what  was  remarkable  was  the  ocu- 
lar demonstration  afforded  to  his 
disciples  of  this  before  unrecognized 
truth.  Whether  their  eyes  were 
opened  and  they  saw  him  in  his 
spiritual  body,  not  unclothed  but 
clothed  upon,  or  whether  his  soul 
returned  to  animate  the  body  which 
he  had  left,  it  is  neither  possible 
nor  important  for  us  to  know. 
The  important  and  the  only  im- 
portant fact  is  that  the  continuity 
of  his  life  was  visibly  attested  to  his 
disciples,  and  from  this  visible  at- 
59 


THE  FIRST-FRUITS   OF 

testation  of  the  continuity  of  his 
life  they  drew  their  faith  and  hope 
and  courage;  on  this  ocular  dem- 
onstration that  he  was  still  living, 
that  it  was  not  in  the  power  of 
Pilate  to  put  him  to  death,  or  the 
broken  heart  to  slay  him,  or  the 
tomb  to  hold  him  in  prison, 
the  Church,  and  with  it  organized 
Christianity,  is  historically  founded. 
For  Christianity  is  not  merely  a 
new  ethical  philosophy;  it  is  a 
great  historic  fact — the  fact  that 
the  World-Deliverer  has  come, 
that  death  has  had  no  power  over 
him,  that  he  is  still  with  his  Church 
to  the  end  of  time,  conquering  and 
to  conquer. 

60 


THEM  THAT  SLEPT 

What  the  New  Testament  repre- 
sents as  true  respecting  Jesus  Christ, 
it  represents  as  true  of  Christ's  fol- 
lowers. He  is  the  first-fruits  of 
them  that  sleep.  Their  resurrec- 
tion is  like  his  resurrection,  their 
life  is  like  his  life,  as  their  death  is 
like  his  death.  They  are  not  raised 
from  the  dead  by  a  power  acting 
on  them  from  without;  they  rise 
from  the  dead  as  the  bird  from  its 
egg,  as  the  plant  from  its  seed. 
The  sons  of  God  have  in  them- 
selves the  immortality  of  their 
Father.  He  that  liveth  and  be- 
lieveth  in  Christ  does  not  die  and 
rise  again  from  the  dead — he  shall 
never  die.  Paul  follows  after 
61 


THE  FIRST-FRUITS   OF 

Christ  that  he  may  know  the  power 
of  his  resurrection.  Eternal  life  is 
not  a  gift  to  be  bestowed  on  the 
child  of  God  hereafter;  he  hath 
eternal  life.  Immortality  is  not  a 
bequest  to  be  by  and  by  received; 
it  is  a  present  possession. 

The  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ 
is  therefore  not  a  miraculous  pro- 
phecy of  a  future  resurrection;  it  is 
a  visible  witness  of  a  present  fact. 
It  attests  the  power  of  the  divine 
life  in  all  the  sons  of  God.  As  the 
germinating  of  a  single  seed  is  evi- 
dence of  a  dormant  power  of  life 
in  all  similar  seeds,  so  the  uprising 
of  this  one  Son  of  God  is  a  dem- 
onstration of  the  dormant  life  in 
62 


THEM  THAT  SLEPT 

all  sons  of  God.  As  a  caterpillar, 
seeing  one  of  his  kin  enter  a  chrys- 
alis and  emerge  a  butterfly,  might 
reason  that  he  entered  his  tomb 
only  to  prepare  for  his  resurrection, 
so  the  Christian,  seeing  the  uncon- 
querable life  of  his  Lord,  thereby 
interprets  the  intimations  of  im- 
mortality in  his  own  soul.  We 
always  find  the  tomb  empty  and 
only  the  grave-clothes  lying  there. 
While  we,  like  Mary,  weep  at  the 
grave,  our  friend,  like  Christ,  un- 
recognized, stands  at  our  side  and 
speaks  our  name.  The  angels  al- 
ways wonder  to  find  us  still  seeking 
the  living  among  the  dead..  Christ's 
resurrection  interprets  and  illustrates 

63 


THE  FIRST-FRUITS   OF 

his  saying  that  the  gates  of  Hades 
shall  not  prevail  against  his  Church. 
The  stone  of  the  tomb  is  always 
rolled  away,  the  dead  have  always 
emerged  from  it. 

Not  spilt  like  water  on  the  ground, 
Not  wrapped  in  dreamless  sleep 

profound, 

Not  wandering  in  unknown  despair 
Beyond  thy  voice,  thy  arm,  thy 

care, 

Not  left  to  die  like  fallen  tree : 
Not  dead,  but  living  unto  thee. 

Christian    Science    is    mistaken 
in  supposing   that    pain   and   sick- 
ness are  not  real.     They  are  as  real 
as  death,  to   which  they  conduct. 
64 


THEM   THAT  SLEPT 

But  as  there  is  an  inner  citadel 
which  death  cannot  enter,  so 
there  is  a  hidden  life  which  pain 
cannot  torment  and  sickness  cannot 
weaken.  There  is  a  real  decay 
which  destroys  the  husk,  but  the 
husk  is  destroyed  that  the  seed 
emancipated  may  rise  into  the  light 
and  air  of  the  world  above  its  prison- 
house.  So  there  is  a  death  which 
destroys  the  body ;  this  death  is 
real ;  the  sicknesses  and  pains  which 
accompany  us  in  this  life  are  meant 
to  be  reminders  of  the  fact  that  for 
us  emancipation  is  doming ;  but 
pain,  sickness,  and  death  are  all  the 
instruments  for  emancipation  ;  and 
we  ourselves,  the  true,  the  divine, 

65 


THE  FIRST-FRUITS  OF 

the  immortal  selves,  are  untouched 
by  them. 

Doubtless  there  are  some  passages 
in  Scripture  which  seem  inconsis- 
tent with  this  view.  But  there  are 
no  passages  in  Christ's  teaching 
which,  properly  interpreted,  do  not 
accord  with  it.  Most  of  them  ex- 
plicitly confirm  it.  The  Old  Tes- 
tament writers  knew  little  or  no- 
thing of  immortality.  Of  the  New 
Testament  writers,  Paul  in  his  first 
letter  to  the  Thessalonians  seems  to 
imply  a  different  conception.  "  If 
we  believe,"  he  says,  "  that  Jesus 
died  and  rose  again,  even  so  them 
also  which  sleep  in  Jesus  will 
God  bring  with  him.  .  .  .  For  the 
66 


THEM   THAT  SLEPT 

Lord  himself  shall  descend  from 
heaven  with  a  shout,  with  the  voice 
of  the  archangel,  and  with  the 
trump  of  God :  and  the  dead  in 
Christ  shall  rise  first."  But  the 
First  Epistle  to  the  Thessalonians 
does  not  contain  Paul's  ripest 
thought.  It  was  written  very  early 
in  Paul's  experience,  while  he  yet 
believed  that  Jesus  was  to  return  to 
the  earth  within  the  lifetime  of 
men  then  living.  His  riper 
thought  is  to  be  found  in  the  fif- 
teenth chapter  of  the  First  Epistle 
to  the  Corinthians.  Underlying  this 
chapter  is  the  faith  which  he  still 
more  explicitly  expresses  in  his 
letter  to  the  Philippians — to  die  is 


THE  FIRST-FRUITS 

"to  depart,  and  to  be  with  Christ, 
which  is  far  better."  Isolated  and 
enigmatical  texts  cannot  counter- 
vail the  generic  teaching  which 
the  New  Testament  emphasizes 
throughout,  that  a  life  personally 
in  fellowship  with  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  and  nourished  by  him  is 
always  a  life  eternal ;  that  the  life 
of  righteousness,  unselfishness,  and 
serviceableness  never  dies,  never 
ceases  to  exist,  but  ever  lives  with 
an  ever-increasing  fullness. 


68 


GOD    SHALL    GIVE    IT    A 
BODY 


GOD   SHALL   GIVE   IT   A 
BODY 

HOW,  then,  shall  we  think  of 
the  resurrection  of  the  body  ? 
We  shall  think  that  the  phrase  itself 
is  misleading.  We  shall  think  with 
Paul  that  "  flesh  and  blood  cannot 
inherit  the  kingdom  of  God."  The 
body  is  the  house  which  the  man 
for  a  little  while  occupies.  Pres- 
ently its  uses  are  accomplished,  it 
falls  into  decay,  and  he  goes  out 
into  another  and  larger  life,  a  bet- 


GOD  SHALL  GIVE  IT  A  BODT 

ter  and  nobler  house.  The  only 
resurrection  of  the  body  is  into 
grass  and  flowers  and  fruit. 

The  phrase  does  not  exist  in  the 
New  Testament.  The  conception 
is  borrowed  from  paganism.  It 
grows  out  of  our  identification  of 
the  person  with  the  tenement  in 
which  he  dwells.  It  belongs  to 
the  same  system  of  philosophy 
which  attributes  to  God  physical 
organs  and  conceives  of  him  as  a 
gigantic  man.  It  has  the  same 
unspiritualistic  character  as  the  idol- 
atry which  represents  God,  who  is 
spirit,  in  visible  and  tangible  forms. 
It  offers  us  for  our  enduring  affec- 
tion not  the  faith,  the  hope,  the 
72 


GOD  SHALL  GIVE  IT  A  BODT 

love;  not  the  spirit  which  looked  up 
not  down,  forward  not  backward, 
out  not  in  ;  but  the  robe  which  this 
spirit  wore,  the  instrument  which 
this  spirit  used.  It  is  the  product 
of  our  sensuousness.  It  is  a  source 
of  almost  unendurable  agony  to  him 
who,  tormented  by  this  conception, 
sees  his  mother,  his  wife,  his  friend 
lowered  into  the  grave  and  hears 
the  sod  falling  on  the  coffin.  It 
makes  the  doctrine  of  immortality 
seem  irrational,  because  it  identifies 
with  faith  in  immortality  belief  in 
the  miraculous  preservation  of  the 
decaying  body,  and  its  recovery 
again  to  life  when  all  its  particles 
have  been  scattered  everywhither. 
73 


GOD  SHALL  GIVE  IT  A  BODT 

The  only  justification  for  its  reten- 
tion in  the  Apostles'  Creed  is  the 
fact  that  it  is  an  ancient  symbolical 
expression  of  faith  in  personal  im- 
mortality, coined  at  a  time  when 
the  person  was  identified  with  his 
body.  It  is  a  symbolical  expression 
of  faith  in  an  immortality  other 
and  more  than  that  of  impersonal 
influence  on  the  one  hand,  and  of 
absorption  into  the  Eternal  on  the 
other. 

Science  prohibits  belief  in  the 
resurrection  of  the  entombed  flesh 
and  blood ;  spiritual  experience  pro- 
tests against  any  such  sensuous  iden- 
tification of  the  immortal  spirit  with 
the  mortal  body ;  and  the  Scripture 
74 


GOD  SHALL  GIVE  IT  A  BODT 

in  explicit  terms  contradicts  the 
pagan  notion  which  has  been  en- 
grafted on  the  Scripture.  The  only 
passage  in  the  New  Testament 
which  deals  in  terms  with  the  resur- 
rection of  the  body  is  the  fifteenth 
chapter  of  the  First  Epistle  to  the 
Corinthians,  and  in  the  fifteenth 
chapter  of  the  First  Epistle  to  the 
Corinthians  Paul  repudiates  the  doc- 
trine of  the  bodily  resurrection  in 
explicit  terms.  How  are  the  dead 
raised,  and  with  what  manner  of 
body  do  they  come?  They  come 
as  the  grain  comes  from  the  seed. 
The  seed  does  not  rise;  it  remains 
and  molders  in  the  earth.  The 
body  does  not  rise ;  it  remains 
75 


GOD  SHALL  GIVE  IT  A  BODT 

and  molders  in  the  earth.  But 
God  gives  it  a  body  even  as  it  hath 
pleased  him  :  to  each  seed  a  body 
of  its  own,  to  each  spirit  a  body  of 
his  own.  All  flesh  is  not  the  same 
flesh.  As  each  animal  has  its  own 
kind  of  body,  so  each  epoch  of  life. 
There  are  celestial  bodies  for  the 
celestial  life,  as  there  are  terrestrial 
bodies  for  the  terrestrial  life.  There 
is  a  natural  body ;  there  is  also  a 
spiritual  body;  each  of  its  own  kind, 
each  having  its  own  uses.  While 
we  are  on  the  earth  we  need  the 
earthy  body ;  when  we  pass  from 
the  earth  into  heaven  we  shall  need 
the  heavenly  body.  We  cannot 
carry  further  the  body  we  had  here. 
76 


GOD  SHALL  GIVE  IT  A  BODT 

If  it  were  raised  from  the  grave  it 
would  be  useless,  for  flesh  and  blood 
cannot  inherit  the  kingdom  of  God, 
neither  can  corruption  inherit  in- 
corruption.  Even  those  that  are 
living  at  the  last  great  day  must 
pass  through  a  transition  to  have 
the  mortal  and  corruptible  body  put 
on  immortality  and  incorruptibility. 
Think  not,  O  mother,  of  your 
child  as  lying  lonely  in  the  grave, 
the  snow  its  winding-sheet  or  the 
spring  flowers  its  funeral  offerings. 
He  is  not  there,  he  never  was  there. 
You  have  not  committed  him  to 
the  grave ;  you  are  not  to  go  there 
in  quest  of  him.  You  have  given 
him  back  to  the  Father  who  gave 
77 


GOD  SHALL  GIVE  IT  A  BODT 

him  to  you.  You  have  put  him  in 
the  arms  of  Christ,  that  Christ  may 
bless  him.  The  voice  of  death  is 
but  the  voice  of  the  Master  saying 
to  you,  "  Suffer  the  little  children 
to  come  unto  me,  and  forbid  them 
not  ;  for  of  such  is  the  kingdom  of 
heaven," 


HOW    SHALL   WE    THINK 
OF    THE    DEAD? 


HOW  SHALL  WE   THINK   OF 
THE    DEAD? 

A  FRIEND  has  asked  me  to 
tell  her  how  to  think  of  the 
dead.  The  question  is  one  which 
sooner  or  later  we  all  ask  ourselves. 
I  cannot  tell  another  how  he  should 
think  of  the  dead;  I  can  only  tell 
him  how  I  think  of  them.  I  think 
of  them  as  I  think  of  the  living, 
for  my  thoughts  respecting  the 
two  are  essentially  identical. 

It    is    the   postulate   of  all    my 


HOW  SHALL    WE   THINK 

thinking  that  there  are  two  worlds 
—  an  outer  and  an  inner,  a  material 
and  a  spiritual,  a  world  governed 
by  inflexible  law  and  a  world  of 
self-governed  liberty,  a  world  dis- 
cerned by  eye  and  ear  and  touch, 
and  a  world  discerned  by  conscious- 
ness. If  the  philosopher  assures 
me  that  these  two  are  one,  I  do 
not  dispute  him;  perhaps  they  are; 
but  in  all  my  thinking  I  think  of 
them  as  two  worlds,  cooperative 
but  contrasted.  I  think  of  an  eter- 
nal Spirit  as  ever  manifesting  him- 
self in  and  through  the  material 
world,  a  perpetual  but  invisible 
Presence,  veiled,  yet  revealed  in  all 
phenomena;  a  love  of  beauty  in 
82 


OF   THE  DEAD? 

all  forms  of  beauty,  an  intellectual 
skill  in  all  mechanical  contrivances, 
a  true  spiritual  consciousness  in  all 
seemingly  unconscious  operations 
of  nature;  an  ever-present  and  eter- 
nal Energy  from  whom  all  things 
proceed — an  Energy  whose  thought 
is  in  all  nature's  ingenuities,  whose 
purpose  is  in  all  life-processes.  I 
conceive  of  him,  the  ever-conscious 
Artist  in  every  flower,  the  ever- 
conscious  Artisan  in  all  correlated 
forces,  the  All-Father  in  all  history 
and  in  all  lives.  I  conceive  him 
setting  me  off  from  himself,  as  a 
spark  is  struck  by  the  hammer 
from  the  red-hot  iron,  to  be,  like 
him,  a  lover  of  beauty  and  a  ere- 
83 


HOW  SHALL    WE    THINK 

ator  of  beauty,  a  lover  of  truth  and 
an  utterer  of  truth,  a  lover  of  right- 
eousness and  a  doer  of  righteous- 
ness; and  yet,  like  him,  free  to 
choose  the  ugly,  the  false,  the  un- 
righteous; and  because  thus  free, 
fitted  to  be  his  companion;  able 
to  be  at  one  with  him  or  to  sep- 
arate myself  from  him,  able  to 
think  his  thoughts,  share  his  pur- 
poses, be  partaker  of  his  life,  or  to 
be  indifferent  or  averse  to  him ; 
capable  of  being  his  companion 
and  his  friend,  and  therefore  capa- 
ble of  being  his  enemy. 

This    spirit    which    has    sprung 
from   him  and   makes   me   in    my 
powers  divine,  however  undivine  I 
84 


OF   THE  DEAD? 

may  be  in  the  use  I  make  of  these 
powers,  also  manifests  itself  in  ma- 
terial forms.  These  material  forms 
may  be  the  creation  of  my  powers, 
yet  wholly  apart  from  me,  as  is  the 
picture  from  the  artist;  or  my  cre- 
ation and  in  their  nature  at  once  a 
part  of  me  and  separated  from  me, 
as  the  song  is  at  once  one  with  and 
apart  from  the  singer;  or  a  part  of 
the  habitation  in  which  I  dwell 
and  which  I  have  built  up  and  re- 
modeled from  within,  as  the  eye 
when  it  flashes  with  the  fire  of 
anger  or  the  lips  when  they  part 
in  the  smile  of  love.  But  neither 
picture,  song,  nor  smile  is  myself 
nor  any  true  part  of  myself;  they 

85 


HOW  SHALL    WE   THINK 

are  but  manifestations  of  myself,  as 
the  flash  of  lightning  or  the  flower 
of  the  field  is  no  part  of  God,  but 
only  a  manifestation  of  God.  The 
picture  is  not  the  artist,  the  song 
is  not  the  singer,  the  smile  is  not 
the  child ;  the  smile  is  only  a  subtler 
and  finer  manifestation  of  the  soul 
than  any  which  the  song  or  the 
brush  can  furnish. 

This  is  the  postulate  of  all  my 
thinking — about  God,  about  my- 
self, about  my  fellow-men,  about 
life.  What  I  think  about  the  dead 
could  be  comprehended  only  as 
one  first  comprehended  this  larger 
thought  which  includes  alike  the 
living  and  the  dead ;  the  past, 
86 


OF   THE  DEAD? 

the  present,  and  the  future;  sci- 
ence, mechanics,  art,  and  poetry; 
nature,  history,  and  biography ;  God 
and  the  individual  soul. 

If  one  accepts  this  postulate  as, 
let  us  say,  a  hypothetical  basis  for 
his  thinking,  he  can  easily  distin- 
guish three  vaguely  defined  stages 
in  the  growth  of  the  individual. 
In  the  first  stage  the  material  organs 
minister  to  the  life  of  the  spirit. 
The  spiritual  life  of  father,  mother, 
teacher,  friend,  is  manifested  by  the 
eye,  the  ear,  the  touch,  and  through 
these  avenues  of  approach  the  spirit 
of  the  child  is  developed.  By  means 
of  these  organs  he  learns  to  observe, 
to  reflect,  to  reason,  to  feel,  to  pur- 
8? 


HOW  SHALL    WE   THINK 

pose.  If  these  organs  are  wanting, 
the  process  of  development  is  much 
more  difficult,  though,  as  if  to  show 
that  there  is  a  spiritual  life  as  well 
as  a  physical  life,  spiritual  develop- 
ment is  not  impossible.  In  the 
second  stage  such  growth  of  the 
spirit  as  can  be  inspired  through 
physical  organs  has  been  substan- 
tially attained,  and  the  organs  are 
used  as  means  whereby  the  still 
growing  spirit  ministers  to  other 
embodied  spirits.  By  his  painting 
the  artist  develops  the  latent  love  of 
beauty  in  others;  by  his  voice  or 
his  pen  the  teacher  or  the  orator 
develops  their  intelligence  or  their 
affections.  In  the  third  stage  the 


OF   THE  DEAD? 

organs  begin  to  appear  as  a  drag 
upon  the  spirit.  The  artist  is  con- 
scious of  a  beauty  which  he  can- 
not interpret  through  the  brush; 
the  poet  of  truths  which  he  cannot 
frame  into  verse ;  the  orator  of  a 
life  which  transcends  all  his  powers 
of  expression.  While  all  others 
are  praising  his  creations  he  is  grow- 
ing increasingly  dissatisfied  with 
them.  His  life  has  grown  at  once 
too  large  and  too  delicate  to  be  ex- 
pressed by  the  tools  with  which  he  is 
furnished.  He  longs  at  times  for 
a  subtler  brush  with  which  to  depict 
beauty,  a  finer  language  than  words 
afford  to  express  his  inexpressible 
life.  Moreover,  as  he  begins  to 
89 


HOW  SHALL    WE   THINK 

feel  the  need  of  finer  tools,  they 
begin  to  grow  poorer.  His  eye 
begins  to  lose  the  keenness  of  its 
vision;  his  hand  the  deftness  of  its 
touch ;  his  sluggish  brain  refuses 
to  obey  his  call ;  the  words  which 
used  to  come  in  flocks  at  his  bidding 
come  slowly  and  singly  or  not  at 
all.  Sometimes  the  spirit  remains 
in  its  prison  long  after  it  has  ceased 
to  be  a  palace  beautiful,  as  if  to 
show  us  how  dreadful  this  world 
would  be  were  we  all  to  live  our 
life  here  after  the  material  organs 
had  ceased  to  be  a  help  and  had 
become  a  hindrance.  But  generally 
before  this  time  comes  the  prison 
walls  fall  away,  and  the  emancipated 
90 


OF   THE  DEAD? 

spirit  enters  upon  a  new  though  un- 
seen habitation  fitted  for  its  larger 
development;  the  dulled  tools  that 
are  losing  their  value  are  taken  away, 
and  the  worker  is  given  a  new 
equipment  in  the  new  world  for  the 
richer,  finer  life  to  which,  after  this 
brief  earthly  schooling,  he  is  called. 
The  body,  its  purposes  all  served, 
returns  to  the  earth  from  which 
it  came,  and  the  spirit,  set  free, 
enters  upon  the  career  for  which  it 
has  been  unconsciously  preparing. 

I  think,  then,  of  death  as  a  glad 
awakening  from  this  troubled  sleep 
which  we  call  life ;  as  an  emanci- 
pation from  a  world  which,  beau- 
tiful though  it  be,  is  still  a  land 


HOW  SHALL    WE   THINK 

of  captivity  ;  as  a  graduation  from 
this  primary  department  into  some 
higher  rank  in  the  hierarchy  of 
learning.  I  think  of  the  dead  as 
possessing  a  more  splendid  equip- 
ment for  a  larger  life  of  diviner 
service  than  was  possible  to  them 
on  earth — a  life  in  which  I  shall 
in  due  time  join  them  if  I  am 
counted  worthy  of  their  fellowship 
in  the  life  eternal. 

Do  they  know  us,  love  us,  hope 
for  our  coming  ?  Shall  we  know 
them,  love  them,  and  may  we  hope 
for  their  fellowship?  Surely.  What 
is  there  left  to  be  immortal  in  us  if 
love  and  hope  die  ?  To  exist  with- 
out love  and  hope  is  not  to  live ; 
92 


OF   THE  DEAD? 

to  exist  with  hope  always  disap- 
pointed and  love  always  denied 
would  hardly  be  to  live.  What 
Scripture  and  philosophy  alike 
promise  to  us  is  eternal  life,  not 
eternal  sleep,  and  faith,  hope,  and 
love  are  the  essentials  of  life. 

I  would  not  lay  too  much  stress 
on  the  intimations  of  Scripture.  I 
recognize  the  difference  between  its 
clear  revelation  and  its  poetic  sug- 
gestions ;  but  so  far  as  its  sugges- 
tions may  be  counted  of  value,  they 
all  indicate  the  continuance  there 
of  love,  which  alone  makes  life 
worth  living  here.  Moses  and 
Elijah  are  recognized  by  Peter, 
James,  and  John  on  the  Mount  of 
93 


HOW  SHALL    WE    THINK 

Transfiguration.  Paul  says,  "To  de- 
part, and  to  be  with  Christ,  which 
is  far  better."  Christ  says,  "  That 
where  I  am,  there  ye  may  be  also." 
But  we  are  not  with  him  of  whose 
presence  we  cannot  have  know- 
ledge. Does  not  Christ  say,  "  They 
neither  marry  nor  are  given  in  mar- 
riage in  heaven  "  ?  Yes  ;  but  he 
also  says,  "  They  are  as  the  angels 
of  God  in  heaven."  Are  the  angels 
without  acquaintance,  fellowship, 
hope,  love  ?  Marriage  is  partly 
sensuous,  partly  spiritual.  It  is  the 
spiritual  only  that  remains  in  the 
land  of  resurrection ;  but  faith, 
hope,  and  love  are  spiritual. 

For  the  rest,  I  neither  know  nor 
94 


OF   THE  DEAD? 

wish  to  know  what  the  future  life 
has  for  me.  I  would  not,  if  I  could, 
stand  at  the  open  window  and  peer 
into  the  unknown  beyond.  I  am 
sure  that  He  whose  mercies  are 
new  every  morning  and  fresh  every 
evening,  who  brings  into  every 
epoch  of  my  life  a  new  surprise, 
and  makes  in  every  experience  a 
new  disclosure  of  his  love,  who 
sweetens  gladness  with  gratitude, 
and  sorrow  with  comfort,  who  gives 
the  lark  for  the  morning  and  the 
nightingale  for  the  twilight,  who 
makes  every  year  better  than  the 
year  preceding,  and  every  new  ex- 
perience an  experience  of  his  mar- 
velous skill  in  gift-giving,  has  for 
95 


HOW  THINK  OF  THE  DEAD  ? 

me  some  future  of  glad  surprise 
which  I  would  not  forecast  if  I 
could. 

I  know  not  what  the  future  hath 

Of  marvel  or  surprise, 
Assured  alone  that  life  and  death 

His  mercy  underlies. 

I  know  not  where  his  islands  lift 
Their  fronded  palms  in  air  ; 

I  only  know  I  cannot  drift 
Beyond  his  love  and  care. 


THE    PRACTICE    OF 
IMMORTALITY 


THE   PRACTICE   OF 
IMMORTALITY 

THE  difference  between  the 
mortal  and  immortal  life  is 
not  made  by  death.  The  immor- 
tal life  is  the  life  which  pain,  sick- 
ness, and  death  cannot  terminate. 
It  is  the  life  of  faith,  of  hope,  of 
love.  Such  life  is  immortal  life, 
because  mortality  cannot  touch  it. 
The  body  is  always  dying;  it  is  in 
an  ever-perpetual  process  of  decay: 
but  the  spirit  of  faith,  hope,  and 
99 


THE  PRACTICE   OF 

love  is  in  no  process  of  decay ;  it  is 
not  mortal.  It  is  eternal  because 
it  stands  in  no  time-relation;  not 
because  it  begins  beyond  the  con- 
fines of  time,  —  there  are  no 
confines, — but  because  it  has  no 
time-boundaries.  Christ  was  as 
immortal  when  hanging  apparently 
helpless  on  the  cross  as  when  he 
rose  from  the  tomb.  Death  could 
not  hold  him,  because  there  was 
something  in  him  which  death 
could  not  lay  hands  upon.  He 
was  always  immortal. 

All    life    has    its    laws.     If  we 

obey  the  laws  of  the  spiritual  life 

we  have   a   right   to  spiritual   life. 

There  are  laws  of  the  body;   and 

100 


IMMORTALITY 

if  one  complies  with  these  laws,  he 
has  a  right  to  health.  So  there 
are  laws  of  the  spirit;  and  if  one 
obeys  them,  he  has  a  right  to  expect 
spiritual  life,  which,  because  it  is  the 
life  of  the  spirit,  is  a  deathless  life. 
Not  all  men  wish  for  immortality. 
They  wish  to  live  forever,  but  living 
forever  is  not  immortality.  Im- 
mortality is  living  the  life  that 
cannot  die,  because  it  is  the  life 
of  the  spirit.  If  we  wish  to  be- 
lieve in  such  life  as  a  life  here- 
after, we  must  believe  in  it  as 
the  life  worth  living  here;  if  we 
wish  to  possess  it  hereafter,  we 
must  wish  to  possess  it  here.  Do 
we? 

101 


THE  PRACTICE   OF 

"  Blessed  are  they  which  do  hun- 
ger and  thirst  after  righteousness,  for 
they  shall  be  filled."  Do  we  hun- 
ger and  thirst  after  righteousness? 
"  Add  to  your  faith  virtue ;  and  to 
virtue  knowledge;  and  to  know- 
ledge temperance;  and  to  temper- 
ance patience ;  and  to  patience 
godliness;  and  to  godliness  brotherly 
kindness;  and  to  brotherly  kindness 
love."  Is  this  the  sum  in  addition 
which  we  are  really  making  in  our 
lives?  Or  is  it,  add  to  your  house 
lands;  and  to  your  lands  furniture; 
and  to  your  furniture  luxurious  liv- 
ing; and  to  your  luxurious  living 
stocks  and  bonds;  and  to  your 
stocks  and  bonds  social  position  ? 
1 02 


IMMORTALITY 

Paul  promises  eternal  life  "to 
them  who  by  patient  continuance 
in  well-doing  seek  for  glory,  and 
honor,  and  immortality."  How 
can  any  one  who  by  perpetual 
compromise  with  evil-doing  seeks 
for  wealth  and  place  and  fame 
expect  eternal  life  ?  "  We  look,"  he 
says,  "not  at  the  things  which  are 
seen,  but  at  the  things  which  are 
not  seen :  for  the  things  which 
are  seen  are  temporal,  but  the 
things  which  are  not  seen  are 
eternal."  If  we  habitually  look 
on  the  things  which  are  seen  and 
are  temporal,  what  reason  have 
we  to  expect  that  we  shall  have 
faith  in  the  things  which  are  not 
103 


THE  PRACTICE   OF 

seen  and  are  eternal?  Faith  in  im- 
mortality is  looking  at  the  things 
which  are  not  seen.  It  is  not  a 
conclusion  reached  by  demonstra- 
tion ;  it  is  a  habit  of  mind. 

Immeasurably  pathetic  to  me  is 
my  experience  in  receiving  letters 
from  men  ahd  women  who  have 
lived  a  self-satisfied  and  self-con- 
tented life  until  suddenly  death  has 
come  and  taken  away  the  child  or 
wife  or  mother  or  husband ;  and 
then  comes  a  longing  for  something 
better,  and  the  letter  to  me  asks, 
What  book  can  I  read,  what  argu- 
ment can  you  give,  that  will  prove 
immortality  ?  Immortality  cannot 
be  demonstrated,  like  a  problem 
104 


IMMORTALITY 

from  Euclid,  on  a  blackboard. 
How  can  I  prove  the  spirituality  of 
Beethoven's  music  to  one  who  has 
never  cared  for  music  ?  Life  comes 
first,  beliefs  afterward.  Stars  were 
before  astronomy,  flowers  before 
botany,  language  before  grammar, 
and  religion  before  theology.  We 
must  live  before  we  can  believe.  If 
I  would  have  a  right  to  the  tree 
of  life,  if  I  would  have  a  right  to 
know  that  there  is  a  tree  of  life,  I 
must  seek  this  immortal  life  here, 
and  seek  it  from  the  God  who  is 
here,  and  seek  it  through  the  chan- 
nels that  he  opens  for  us.  If  we 
live  here  and  now  the  immortal  life, 
then,  if  we  are  mistaken  and  there 
105 


THE  PRACTICE   OF 

is  no  life  after  the  grave,  still  we 
shall  have  been  immortal.  It  were 
better  to  live  an  immortal  life  and 
be  robbed  of  the  immortality  here- 
after by  some  supernal  power  than 
to  live  the  mortal,  fleshly,  animal 
life,  and  live  it  endlessly.  Who 
would  not  rather  have  a  right  to 
immortality  than  be  immortal  with- 
out a  right  to  be  ?  For  myself,  I 
can  think  of  no  doom  so  terrible 
as  that  I  should  live  on  an  endless 
and  worthless  life;  like  the  Wan- 
dering Jew,  condemned  to  wander 
through  all  the  ages  with  nothing 
in  life  to  live  for.  What  would 
life  be  without  faith  or  hope  or 
love  ? 

1 06 


IMMORTALITY 

If  we  are  to  pluck  the  fruit  from 
the  tree  of  life,  we  must  have  a 
right  to  it.  If  we  would  have  a 
rational  hope  in  life  hereafter,  we 
must  have  the  immortal  life  here. 
To  have  faith  in  immortality  we 
must  practise  immortality. 


107 


PICTURE-TEACHING 


PICTURE-TEACHING 

THE  pictures  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament are  not  mere  orna- 
ments. They  are  revelations.  Four 
pictures  of  death  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament give  through  the  imagina- 
tion the  same  interpretation  that  is 
given  by  its  philosophy  and  the 
recorded  experience  of  its  writers. 

"  Death   is  sleep,"  the  Hebrew 
Psalmist  had  said.    The  New  Testa- 
ment repeats  the  figure  :    "  Lazarus 
sleepeth;"   "She  is  not  dead,  but 
in 


PICTURE-TEACHING 

sleeping."  When  Stephen  falls  a 
martyr  under  the  shower  of  stones, 
it  is  said  of  him,  "  He  fell  asleep." 
This  is  the  first  figure.  The  child  is 
weary  with  his  toil  and  sated  with 
his  play.  The  long  shadows  fall 
aslant  the  lawn,  and  the  mother, 
wiser  than  her  child,  goes  to  the 
door  and  calls  him  in.  Fretfully 
and  reluctantly  he  comes,  answering 
her  beckoning.  He  does  not  wish 
to  leave  his  sports,  he  wishes  still  to 
stay,  and  she  takes  him  to  her  arms 
and  rocks  him  to  sleep,  that  she 
may  fit  him  for  new  toil  and  new 
happiness  on  the  morrow.  Death 
is  Christ  standing  at  the  door  and 
saying,  Children,  your  work  is  over, 
112 


PICTURE-TEACHING 

your  plays  are  done,  and  twilight 
has  come ;  let  me  give  you  rest ; — 
and  we,  fretfully  and  reluctantly 
answering  the  summons,  come 
weeping  to  the  grave  that  will  give 
us  what  he  gives  his  beloved  — 
sleep. 

Death  is  an  exodus.  It  is  said 
that  on  the  Mount  of  Transfigura- 
tion Christ  spoke  of  the  exodus 
which  he  was  about  to  accomplish 
at  Jerusalem ;  it  was  as  a  going 
forth  from  a  land  of  bondage  to  a 
land  of  liberty.  The  children  of 
Israel  are  in  Goshen.  They  are 
fed,  clothed,  housed ;  but  they  are 
slaves.  When  Moses  comes  to  sum- 
mon them,  they  hesitate  to  respond 
"3 


PICTURE-TEACHING 

to  his  summons.  They  dread  the 
Red  Sea,  and  the  long  wilderness 
journey,  and  the  experiences  through 
which  they  must  pass  to  the  Prom- 
ised Land.  But  nevertheless  his  is 
a  message  of  emancipation  and  de- 
liverance. We  are  in  a  land  of 
Goshen,  in  bondage  to  our  flesh. 
Who  does  not  sometimes  feel  the 
limitations  of  his  own  body  ? 
Who  does  not  sometimes  feel  as 
though  he  could  understand  the 
impatient  bird  that  wishes  to  spring 
from  the  cage  and  fly  away  ? 
Death  is  the  voice  of  Moses  saying 
to  men,  "  You  are  to  be  slaves  no 
longer ;  you  are  to  be  bound  by 

vour  chains  no  more  ;  the  land  of 

j 

114 


PICTURE-TEACHING 

liberty  is  before  you."      Death  is  a 
proclamation  of  emancipation. 

Death  is  unmooring.  "  The 
time  of  my  unmooring,"  says  Paul, 
"  is  at  hand."  The  ship  is  fastened 
to  the  wharf,  lying  there  to  be  fin- 
ished. It  stands  in  the  stays,  and 
the  workmen  are  still  upon  it  with 
hammer  and  saw.  Such  are  we  in 
this  life.  No  man  is  ever  finished. 
We  are  here  in  the  making.  We 
are  upon  the  stays,  where  with  tool 
and  implement,  with  saw  and  ham- 
mer, we  are  wrought  upon, — 
sometimes  very  much  to  our  dis- 
content,—  until  by  a  long,  slow  pro- 
cess a  man  is  made  ;  and  then  when 
the  time  has  come  and  God  is  ready, 
"5 


PICTURE-TEACHING 

he  knocks  away  the  underpinning, 
and  the  ship  breaks  from  its  ways 
out  into  the  element  which  we  do 
not  understand,  but  the  element  for 
which  God  is  preparing  him.  In 
Mrs.  Gatty's  "Parables  from  Na- 
ture" is  a  beautiful  parable  of  the 
grub  of  the  dragon-fly  in  the  water 
wondering  what  the  world  outside 
is,  of  which  it  sometimes  hears, 
and  feeling  within  itself  the  strange, 
inexplicable  yearning  that  it  cannot 
understand,  and  bidding  its  com- 
panion grubs  good-by,  saying  to 
them,  "  If  there  is  another  world, 
as  they  say  there  is,  I  will  return 
and  tell  you  all  about  it ;  "  and 
finally  climbing  up  out  of  the  water 
116 


PICTURE-TEACHING 

into  the  sunshine,  and  emerging 
from  the  shell  and  skimming  the 
surface  of  the  water  and  sailing 
about  in  the  upper  sphere  around 
the  pool,  but  never  able  to  go  back 
and  tell  what  its  emancipation  has 
been.  Death  is  an  unmooring  ;  it 
launches  us  into  our  true,  real 
element. 

Death  is  home-coming.  "  I  go," 
Christ  says,  "to  prepare  a  place  for 
you."  We  set  sail  upon  an  un- 
known sea,  but  we  go  not  to  a 
strange  land.  Here  we  are  pil- 
grims and  strangers;  there  we  shall 
be  at  home.  From  some  poor  hut 
in  Ireland  one  after  another  of  the 
family  set  sail  to  America,  their 
117 


PICTURE-TEACHING 

Eldorado  —  first  the  sons,  then  the 
daughters,  last  of  all  the  father  and 
mother.  With  some  sorrow  in 
their  hearts  for  the  memories  of 
the  past,  with  some  fear  in  their 
hearts  mingled  with  anticipations 
of  the  future,  they  take  their  pas- 
sage in  the  narrow  quarters  furnished 
by  the  steerage.  But  when  the 
voyage  is  over,  and  they  land  on 
this  side,  the  sons  and  daughters 
are  on  the  wharf  to  welcome  them. 
Theirs  is  really  a  home-coming. 
So  all  of  us  have  sent  some  friends 
before  us,  a  brother,  a  sister,  a  child, 
a  husband,  a  wife.  When  we  are 
summoned  to  our  departure,  though 
the  ship  be  strange  and  the  sea  un- 
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PICTURE-TEACHING 

known,  we  shall  be  embarking  for 
a  land  where  friends  will  be  await- 
ing us.  To  fall  asleep  here,  to 
wake  up  there  and  find  ourselves 
at  home  —  how  strange  will  seem 
the  sudden  transition ! 

Why,  then,  should  we  be  afraid 
of  death  ?  As  on  the  Christmas 
Day  the  father  attires  himself  as 
Santa  Claus,  and  comes  into  the 
room  bringing  his  hands  full  of 
gifts,  and  the  little  children  do  not 
know  him,  and  are  frightened  at 
his  coming,  and  cry,  and  run  away, 
so  death  is  but  Christ  disguised, 
coming  laden  with  gifts:  rest  for 
the  weary  one,  liberty  for  the  en- 
slaved one,  completion  to  the  unfin- 
119 


PICTURE-TEACHING 

ished  and  aspiring  one,  home- 
coming to  the  lonely  and  desolate 
one.  Picture  death  no  longer  as  a 
skeleton  with  scythe  and  hour-glass ; 
that  is  pagan.  See  him  luminous 
and  radiant,  the  cross  in  his  hand, 
a  smile  upon  his  lips,  and  from  him 
the  invitation,  Come  unto  me,  ye 
that  labor  and  are  heavy  laden,  and 
I  will  give  you  rest,  and  I  will  give 
you  life. 


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